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Caliginous Orion Cobalt

#1b3c82
Notes

Caliginous Orion Cobalt (#1B3C82) is a deep azure with a jewel character. It carries the deep, saturated richness of a gemstone. Authoritative and slightly formal, it works well for type and heavy UI elements. Its HSL profile (221°, 66%, 31%) places it in the balanced band at a dark lightness. It works well as a headline, icon, or deep background in an otherwise light layout, pairing cleanly with cream, bone, and warm neutrals. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary amber. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.

HEX
#1b3c82
RGB
rgb(27, 60, 130)
HSL
hsl(221, 66%, 31%)
HWB
hwb(221 11% 49%)
OKLCH
oklch(37.5% 0.125 262.9)
P3
color(display-p3 0.1383 0.2322 0.4920)
HSV
hsv(221, 79%, 51%)
LAB
lab(26.95% 15.01 -42.90)
LCH
lch(26.95% 45.45 289.28)
CMYK
cmyk(79%, 54%, 0%, 49%)

Etymology

Caliginous
adjective

Latin cālīginōsus, misty / dark — derived from cālīgō (mist, gloom). As a color modifier, caliginous implies an obscured, dimmed, slightly-cool-shifted quality where the hue is veiled by darkness or atmospheric fog. Sits at the deep-and-veiled end of the grid, between murky and tenebrous in usage.

Orion
modifier

Greek Ὠρίων, hunter-of-the-myth. As a color modifier, orion implies a winter-hunter-and-belt-and-shoulder quality, the visual register of winter-Orion-and-Belt-of-Orion hand-winter-hunter-and-belt-and-shoulder winter-Orion-and-Belt-of-Orion-and-Bortle-1-sky orion-and-winter-hunter-and-belt-and-shoulder surfaces under winter-Orion-and-Belt-of-Orion-and-Bortle-1-sky January-and-February-winter-zenith winter-constellation-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to rigel and cygnus in usage.

Cobalt
noun

Element Co, atomic number 27 — German Kobold, goblin, named by miners who found the metal interfered with smelting silver ore. Cobalt blue is the cobalt-aluminate pigment introduced by Louis Jacques Thénard in 1802: a saturated, slightly green-shifted deep blue with the matte finish of mineral pigment in oil. Cooler than ultramarine, warmer than prussian, with the painter's weight of a pigment used by Renoir, Van Gogh, and Cézanne.

Closest matches

The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.

Variations

Click any swatch to explore

Harmonies

Accessibility

Color-vision simulation

How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.

#1b3c82
Original
#0b4584
Protanopia
#003b81
Deuteranopia
#004d59
Tritanopia
#3a3a3a
Achromatopsia
WCAG contrast

The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.

The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
AAAon White
10.42:1
The quick brown foxSample body text at normal size. The wcag minimum for body contrast is 4.5:1 (AA) or 7:1 (AAA).
Failon Black
2.02:1

Wide gamut

Display P3 representation

The CSS Color 4 wide-gamut form of this color. Both swatches render the same color on every display — the P3 form only diverges from sRGB when a designer pushes channels outside sRGB's reach.

sRGB hex
sRGB hex
##1B3C82
Display P3
Display P3
color(display-p3 0.1383 0.2322 0.4920)
P3 has subtle headroomOKLCH chroma 0.125

Moderately saturated colors gain a small bump in P3 — the difference is usually visible side-by-side on wide-gamut hardware but won't change the character of the color.

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